Things have really been tough these days for the proponents of the global
warming theory.

It's not just that President George W. Bush rejected the Kyoto global
warming accord, the Clinton-era treaty which mandated economically drastic
cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

Science has not exactly been kind either. It seems that not a month goes
by when there is yet another scientific study casting serious doubts about
environmentalists' belief that man-made carbon dioxide emissions will
lead to catastrophic global warming in coming decades.

Just recently, a team of scientists led by Dr. Richard Lindzen of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology published a paper in which they
theorize that there could be a natural "vent" in the Earth's
atmosphere that releases heat into space. The authors caution that more
research needs to be done to verify the phenomenon. But they say that,
if true, the existence of a de facto atmospheric thermostat that helps
keep the Earth's temperature on an even keel would require global warming
theorists to significantly scale back their predictions of warming allegedly
caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases. [1]

The study, published in the March 2001 issue of the Bulletin of the American
Meteorological Society, examines the behavior of high cirrus clouds over
a large section of the western tropical Pacific Ocean. Clouds have been
one of the most difficult factors for climate modelers to understand in
their efforts to predict long-term temperature trends - and why climate
model predictions so often prove wrong. For instance, thick clouds reflect
more sunlight than thin clouds back into space and help mitigate surface
warming. Thin clouds, on the other hand, don't deflect as much sunlight
but are efficient in trapping heat at the surface. [2]

Lindzen is critical of climate modelers for failing to take into account
the complex role of clouds in regulating temperature: "We found that
there were terrible errors about clouds in all the models, and that that
will make it impossible to predict" long- term temperature change.
[3]

The significance of Lindzen's new study is that scientists may have found
how those thin, high cirrus clouds specifically help to regulate global
temperatures - and serve as a counter to global warming. The study finds
that high cirrus clouds decrease in thickness by about 22% per one degree
Celsius increase in sea surface temperature. Conversely, the cirrus clouds
thicken when the sea surface temperature is lower. Most intriguing, a
22% decrease in cirrus cloud cover also leads to a significant decrease
in sea surface temperature of about 1.1°C. In short, the study says
that cirrus clouds operate much like the "iris" of an eye regulating
the admission of light. The clouds open in response to rising surface
temperature, permitting cooling. The clouds close when the surface temperature
cools to retain heat. [4]

The study's authors say that these findings require climate modelers
to scale back by as much as two- thirds the projected warming that would
result from a doubling of carbon dioxide. According to some climate model
forecasts, a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would lead to
a 1.2°C temperature increase. But the existence of the atmospheric
heat "vent" should change that prediction to between 0.57°
and 0.83°C. [5]

Lindzen says that the study's results as well as scientific evidence
on other natural climate processes should give global warming theorists
considerable pause before recommending economically-drastic measures,
such as the Kyoto Treaty, to combat the unproven man-made warming threat.

Speaking bluntly, Lindzen says that, in view of the paucity of evidence
for human-driven climate change, "the Kyoto Treaty is absurd."
[6]

The possible existence of an atmospheric heat vent that mitigates global
warming is not the first time scientists have discovered a natural phenomenon
that influences climate change. Many scientists believe changes in solar
magnetism cause significant increases and decreases in the Earth's temperature.
Dr. Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
says that increases and decreases in the Earth's temperature over the
last 250 years "match almost exactly the ups and downs in [solar]
magnetism." [7]

Other scientists point to changes in ocean temperature and changes in
ocean circulation patterns over decades or even centuries as other likely
contributors to global warming and cooling. [8]

Whatever the respective roles of the sun, the oceans and an atmospheric
heat vent, one thing is certain: The evidence that natural forces influence
climate change is rapidly accumulating.

Buy The Satanic Gasses: Clearing the Air about Global Warming at Amazon.com
for
$8.76 (20% off)

Other related articles: (open in a new window)

Kyoto
resurrected? by Henry Lamb (April 23, 2001)
Like a monster from a bad movie, the Kyoto Protocol refuses to die.
Henry Lamb says Jan Pronk was in the United States recently trying to
revive the almost dead treaty

The
shared vision of hell By Patrick J. Michaels and Robert C. Balling
(January 29, 2001)
Patrick J. Michaels and Robert C. Balling discuss the hysteria behind
global warming in this excerpt from their book The Satanic Gasses

Blame
the sun for global warming by John K. Carlisle (July 1998)
John K. Carlisle says an unexpected villain may be responsible for that
global climate change the Earth has experienced over the past several
thousand years